Rev. Jeremiah Wright & Obama Worked this Out A Year Ago

24 Mar

Because of a church news bulletin that re-surfaced from over one year ago, it appears that Barack Obama and his Pastor Jeremiah Wright had already negotiated the terms of his non-involvement in the Obama campaign.

Rev. Wright had published an open letter in the March 18, 2007 church bulletin to NY Times reporter Jodi Kantor as a response to her hit-job story on March 6, 2007 about Obama and Wright’s relationship. Her story leads with

“The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., senior pastor of the popular Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and spiritual mentor to Senator Barack Obama, thought he knew what he would be doing on Feb. 10, the day of Senator Obama’s presidential announcement.

After all, back in January, Mr. Obama had asked Mr. Wright if he would begin the event by delivering a public invocation.

But Mr. Wright said Mr. Obama called him the night before the Feb. 10 announcement and rescinded the invitation to give the invocation.

“Fifteen minutes before Shabbos I get a call from Barack,” Mr. Wright said in an interview on Monday, recalling that he was at an interfaith conference at the time. “One of his members had talked him into uninviting me,” Mr. Wright said, referring to Mr. Obama’s campaign advisers.”

That was one year ago, mind you. Rev. Wright’s letter to Kantor exposed what he thought was problematic about her initial story:

March 11, 2008Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959

Dear Jodi:

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.

For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other whether or not she was going to run.

I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing it would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed something other than what he believed.

I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose Christianity was not just “in word only.” I talked about Barack being a person who lived his faith and did not argue his faith. I talked about Barack as a person who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign other people to hell if they did not believe what he believed.

Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack’s spiritual journey and my protesting to you that I had not shaped him nor formed him, that I had not mentored him or made him the man he was, even though I would love to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When I told you, using one of your own Jewish stories from the Hebrew Bible as to how God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?,” that Barack was like that when I met him. Barack had it “in his hand.” Barack had in his grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development that one is hard put to find in the 21st century, and you did not print that.

As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack’s taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people and deeming it unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You and your editor proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed “sound byte” and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.

I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous behavior before, and I want to write you publicly to let you know that I do not approve of it and will not be party to any further smearing of the name, the reputation, the integrity or the character of perhaps this nation’s first (and maybe even only) honest candidate offering himself for public service as the person to occupy the Oval Office.

Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention that makes me doubt your credibility, and I am looking forward to see how you are going to butcher what else I had to say concerning Senator Obama’s “Spiritual Biography.” Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane Fisler Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black church that Hannity of “Hannity and Colmes” is trying to trash, set the record straight for you in terms of who I am and in terms of who we are as the church to which Barack has belonged for over twenty years.

The president of our denomination, the Reverend John Thomas, has offered to try to help you clarify in your confused head what Trinity Church is even though you spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the Senator; and yet The New York Times continues to roll on making the truth what it wants to be the truth. I do not remember reading in your article that Barack had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out? Either way, you do not have to worry about hearing anything else from me for you to edit or “spin” because you are more interested in journalism than in truth.

Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that The New York Times was leading the bandwagon in trumpeting why it is we should have gone into an illegal war. The New York Times became George Bush and the Republican Party’s national “blog.” The New York Times played a role in the outing of Valerie Plame. I do not know why I thought The New York Times had actually repented and was going to exhibit a different kind of behavior.

Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of Roshashana. Maybe it was my being caught up in the euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever it is or was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times. You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face and told me a lie!

Sincerely and respectfully yours,

Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ

So since Obama and Wright had seemed to work this out over a year ago it begs the question, how did this become “news” in the first place?

Moreover, this is one of the problems with journalism. You don’t have to allow your sources to approve the story you’ve written, but I think it is really unfair to ambush people. It’s happened to me (as recently as this year) and I never appreciate it. It’s fair to be honest about the story you’re writing, and your story should have some context-so taking Wright’s one quote about being disinvited without telling giving additional context was not only unfair, but disingenuous.

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7 Responses to “Rev. Jeremiah Wright & Obama Worked this Out A Year Ago”

  1. Betsy March 24, 2008 at 2:43 pm #

    -

    Things take a slightly different perspective when viewed in the right context.

    Whether one agrees with Reverend Wright or not, it seems to me that he has been unfairly demonized to make a media controversy.

    Watch Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9-11 sermon in context on youtube and decide.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

    Jeremiah Wright’s God Damn America in context on Youtube

  2. hannah March 24, 2008 at 8:01 pm #

    when you actually take the time to listen to what he’s saying, it’s not nearly as inflamitory or offensive as the media makes it out to be. our violence has spawned more and more violence, there’s nothing racist or unpatriotic about him pointing that out.

  3. queerkidofcolor March 31, 2008 at 11:43 am #

    great post.

  4. Kenyon Farrow March 31, 2008 at 11:48 am #

    Thanks. We need to actually meet in person. LOL

  5. Cole Krawitz April 9, 2008 at 12:00 pm #

    interesting…sadly, wright mixed up the jewish holidays at the end. he means yom kippur, not rosh hashanah…

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